Preview

The 21st Century Modern Family

Best Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1897 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The 21st Century Modern Family
The 21st Century Modern Family

The 21st Century Modern Family Let us review a global institution. The family is an institution found in every culture of society on earth. Families around the world live, love and work in uniquely different ways depending upon their cultural norms. Vissing says that over the life course every person has a family – even if it is a family of one (Vissing, 2011). The 21st century American family has been reshaped by the changes in moral family values, rising infertility rates and changing marital patterns attained in the previous century. The institution of the American family has been typified as the nuclear family comprised of a father, mother and one or more children. That traditional family makeup of biological families and adoptive families has changed in the 21st Century to reflect families with gay or lesbian parents, blended or step-families, and an increasing number of children raised by grandparents and women becoming single parents (Hertz, et al., 1997). Vissing describes the diversity in families as the ‘new norm’ (Vissing, 2011). Family is defined as almost any grouping of two or more people living with one another (Family, 2010). Today we find increasingly that child bearing and intimate relationships taking place outside of the context of the institution of marriage (Barlow, et al., 2004). Despite the changes which have taken place, the family is not a dying institution. Sociologists have utilized theories on the many different aspects of family looking at the structural-functionalist theory, conflict theory and symbolic interaction theory to analyze the state of the family. Functionalists consider the institution of the family as preparation for our children to the path of adulthood (Vissing, 2011). Children receive love and care, nurture and develop socialization skills under the care of loving parents (Vissing, 2011). Families guide our foundational cultural and moral values, influence our

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The traditional family structure in the United States is used to be considered as a family support system involving two married people providing care for their family. However, the traditional family structure has become less common as we head into the 21th century. The changes among families in America has shifted to very powerful changes, including divorce and single-parent families, teenage pregnancy, and same-sex marriage, and increased rate of adoption. Social movements such as advanced technology, longer life spans, the freedom of increasing the use of birth control, women’s increasing engagement into the workforce, and a dramatic increase in divorce rates have restructured the American family’s life nowadays.…

    • 259 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Dh3N 34

    • 1243 Words
    • 5 Pages

    This essay will discuss the “modern family Structures” within society and explore the lack of any “normal” or standard family. Using existing sociology perspectives this essay will further discuss modern behaviours, experiences and life chances within a specific family unit and how they fit the existing theories. Finaly the author will evaluate the usefulness if any of these theories and how they can be used in a coherent manner to explain the impact they have on a family unit and in turn what impact the family has on the individual.…

    • 1243 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Diversity In Counselling

    • 930 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Families and family relationships are overwhelmingly complex, with unconventional networks of relationships built up as a result of marriages, divorce and separation, remarriage, and combined families. Whilst the definition of ‘family’ is multiplex, people are always conscious of their connections to others, whether good or bad, and some of these connections carry more weight than others (Carsten, 2000). Family structure is both culturally and socially located (Oltedal & Nygren, 2014). It is defined by gender, education and marital status (Wall & Gouveia, 2014) and shaped by governmental policies: the social problems of one era set the agenda for the next (Shanahan, 2005). For many, the concept of ‘family’ is based around the group of individuals…

    • 930 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The family has been the focus of study for many different sociologists, all of which can be criticized in some form.Throughout this essay I am going to examine how the different theoretical approaches explain how family structures and the roles of individuals within them have changed in relation to each of the historical stages that Western society is said to have developed through.…

    • 1279 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Family Diversity

    • 2460 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Even as family scientists and sociologists dispel our mythology of family with facts, we cling to the Ward-and-June-Cleaver vision of the way we were and ought to be. In truth, we never were as perfectly shaped as we thought. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, just 43 percent of families in 1940 were "traditional" in the sense that they had a working father and a homemaker mother and, of course, well-rounded children. Today, less than 20 percent of American families fit nicely into this shape and two-income marriages are now the norm (Otten). Others are blended and step-parent families, single-parent families, and extended families. Still united by the common threads of shared experience and, in the best of circumstances, shared…

    • 2460 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    There is no single “true” form or definition of a family. Looking at the present day norm, a family can consist of a husband, wife and their children, two wives and their children, blended families with children from previous marriages, and many other variations due to the diversities that are now present in society. Back in the day, families were mostly economic units meaning that families must have worked together productively in order to survive economically. Today, the family unit has evolved to being more of a psychological unit. This essay will outline how the traditional family economic unit has transformed to a psychological unit one that is more affectionate between the family members and how the emotional relationship is more important than that of surviving the economy.…

    • 651 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Functionalism contributes to our understanding of the family by considering the effect of the family on society as a whole rather than on the individual members. This macro-sociological…

    • 746 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Outline and evaluate Functionalist views of the role of the family in society. (33 marks)…

    • 1022 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Weigel, Daniel J. (2008). The concept of Family: An Analysis of Laypeople`s Views of Family”. Journal of Family Issues 29 (11). 1446-1447.…

    • 3681 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Functionalists see society as playing a major role in achieving social goals such as proving positive norms and values for the individual and society to reproduce consensus. They believe that institutions such as the family must have a function which benefits society and its members. They believe that without consensus society will collapse into chaos. Consensus and shared values enables the members of society to cooperate with each other providing unity. Functionalist sees society as an institution from which norms and values are shares providing harmony. Functionalists regard society as a system that depend on each other such as the institution of the family, the education system and the economy. They look at what the nuclear family does for the whole of society, not just for certain individuals. Functionalists consider the nuclear family as essential for society’s smooth running.…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The article “The Changing Face of the American Family” by Tim Stanley focused on the topic of how the American family has changed in the past century. Stanley discusses the “nuclear family,” which is a family centered around two parents. The nuclear family was forged by the unique economic and political circumstances of the 1950’s, was undermined by social revolution in the 1960’s and was revived as an ideal family in the 1970’s due to the deceptively rosy view of the past (Stanley 11). The idea of the “nuclear family” is still considered by some to be the ideal family and the promise of the American dream.…

    • 320 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The conventional archetype of a family composed of a father, mother and children still holds influence in many parts of America, despite which it now accounts for fewer than 25 percent of the state 's households. A lot of politicians, clergies and conservative activists hold on to that archetype when they talk in defense of "family values." Reports from the Census Bureau shown, that many of all families in America are now headed by unmarried adults. At the present there over 28.7 million one-person households compared to 24.1 million households that have a married couples with minor children (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). Family diversity at the present has become the norm in America. The issues of family diversity have been discussed by various people in various media. On common source of such information is found on Journals with various scholars expressing their view through articles or publishing their research findings.…

    • 1672 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The last snapshot of the American family, taken by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2000, looked markedly different from previous years. Divorced parents, stepparents, adoptive parents, unmarried biological parents who live together, gay parents, and single parents raising a child on their own- all add up to the most astonishing revelation: The "typical" family of married parents and their biological children accounts for fewer than…

    • 2036 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this modern day and time, families range from traditional to modern. The traditional family is a vulnerable mirage, holding on to values once strongly deemed necessary. The modern family is a deviant reflection of traditional family. The composition of traditional nuclear family members no longer exists only in traditional sense. Participants in modern families are, the traditional man, woman and child, partnered gay men and lesbian women with or without child, single man and child, and a woman and child. Many of the family styles are responses to…

    • 668 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Modern day families come in all shapes and sizes – divorce, remarrying, single parenting, out-of-wedlock and a number of other variables have turned the nuclear family into the exception rather than the norm. Even within the modern nuclear family, homemaker and breadwinner roles have evolved into something that makes it impossible to have one specific definition for family. As a matter of fact, the…

    • 1220 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics